Who said that?

In a radio ad that Clinton is runing, people hear: (emp add)

"This is an election news update with a major news story reported by the AP. While Senator Obama has crisscrossed Ohio giving speeches attacking NAFTA, his top economic advisor was telling the Canadians that was all just political maneuvering. A newly released document from the Canadian government shows that Obama’s senior economic advisor met with the Canadian Consul General and made clear that Obama’s attack on NAFTA were just, quote, “political maneuvering,” not policy. Political maneuvering, not policy. In fact, the document shows that Obama’s advisor also assured the Canadians that these attacks against NAFTA would not continue. Obama would not want to be, quote, “fundamentally changing the agreement.” As Senator Obama was telling one story to Ohio, his campaign was telling a very different story to Canada. How will Ohioans decide whether they can believe Senator Obama’s words? We’ll find that out on election day. Paid for by Hillary Clinton for President."

Where did that quote ("political maneuvering") come from? The sentence allows it to be either Obama's advisor or the document written by the Canadian government. And since "Obama's senior economic advisor" is closer than "document from the Canadian government" to the quote, many people will think it's a direct quote from the Obam camp.

But it was not a quote of the advisor, at least not as presented in the document. From TPM:

[Obama's advisor] "was frank in saying that the primary campaign has been necessarily domestically focused, particularly in the Midwest, and that much of the rhetoric that may be perceived to be protectionist is more reflective of political maneuvering than policy," the memo's introduction said.

Now it's possible that Obama's guy did say "political maneuvering", but it's not clearly established by that memo. But the Clinton camp is making it sound like he did say it.


posted by Quiddity at 3/04/2008 05:52:00 PM